DLC and Non-DLC. The showdown debate thread. Enough is enough.

Okay. I'm opening this thread because I want a healthy debate here on WHY DLC should pick their candidates & ram it through over objections of the voters and WHY progressives should be so whiny about not getting their candidates through. I want to hear from the centrist point of view, and the "loony left's" POV, and try to find a middle ground on all of this crap.

Now. Debate. No shit flinging, please.

The reason is because I'm sick and tired of the shit that is being flung between both of them. My intentions were to see if DLC and non-DLC is willing to have a healthy and not call each other names and flame each other to death.

Mods: I'm trying to ask that you allow this thread to stay. PM me if you have any questions/concerns.

Nice.

You may wanna reword that opening paragraph...

Sounds more like you are wanting to start a flame war than have a actual debate...

I'm actually among the loony left, so I'm trying to see if I could get BOTH sides to side down and debate the issues here.

I have a very good friend who is an DLC himself, and he and I agree to disagree on some of the issues, and also agrees that Lieberman needs to go.

You are the American mainstream. Far more people agree with you than the DLC. And while sanity can not be judged in numbers, the last several years have shown you to be far saner.

The American people tend to be extremely sour on Bush and the war in Iraq and agree with the so-called Loonie Left on most economic issues.

Socially, they tend to be a bit more mixed. For example, they tend to support abortion rights yet are overwhelmingly pro death penalty.

This is based on polls, which have clear methodology problems, admittedly.

nafta probably even has some repubs against it so ill go looney left winning concensus

gay marriage dlc/clinton strategy seems to be dont call it marriage but civil unions which i think is more popular than looney left

abortion i think dlc and looney left are about the same here, and if not safe and rare will win

war not sure what looney left or dlc or rightwing strategy truly is(going forward)

immigration dont really know where anyone as a group stands

death penalty looney left is very low in popularity here


i just dont think it is clear where people stand. hell, most dont even understand the issues and mock nuance


ill vote for the man/woman not the dlc/looney left monicker

my #1 issue is health care (kerry's plan was pretty good, and he is dlc right?)

"nafta probably even has some repubs against it so ill go looney left winning concensus"

DLC is very pro-free trade.

"gay marriage dlc/clinton strategy seems to be dont call it marriage but civil unions which i think is more popular than looney left"

Clinton advised Kerry to "lose the gays" in 2004 so I doubt the DLC is very concerned about "civil unions" which many "looney lefties" are willing to accept.

"abortion i think dlc and looney left are about the same here, and if not safe and rare will win"

Agreed, except the DLC tends to understand how to communicate on this better.

"war not sure what looney left or dlc or rightwing strategy truly is(going forward)"

DLC thinks the war is OK but was poorly prosecuted. They support "progressive internationalism", ie. the projection and expansion of american influence. "Lefty loonies" would like to see us pull troops back home.

"immigration dont really know where anyone as a group stands"

I think the immigration debate blows most of these definitions away but I think the DLC is pro-immigration.

"death penalty looney left is very low in popularity here"

agreed

"my #1 issue is health care (kerry's plan was pretty good, and he is dlc right?)"

Technically Kerry is DLC but not as much as, say Bayh. Basically, "lefty loony" wants single payer now and DLCers like Bayh will say nice things and then throw us under the bus.

And I sure as shit ain't no leftist.

That, above all, is what makes me the most frustrated. I'm not talking about just the DLC but in general. The fact that the DLC willingly accepts corporate donations from groups such as Enron to Exxon-Mobil is rather dismaying. If a person accepts a small percentage of corporate donations, I'm willing to live with that, but I draw the line when a quarter or more of your money is coming from corporate interest. Then a question arises in my mind about your being able to make a rational decision despite the intoxicating effect of that money.

If you want to win votes, you'll never do it with pale colors and timid messages. You win with vibrant colors and a message that is clear for the majority to understand. If you want to win, you listen to the people, not to the corporations. The last time I checked, most people support universal health care, but it's not cast as "centrist." It's cast as extremist.

The last time I checked, that bankruptcy reform law is not centrist. It is a giveaway to corporations. The free-trade agenda is not centrist. Things like NAFTA/CAFTA/FTAA/more are not centrist. They have little if any protections for workers both here and abroad, and they have almost nothing with respect to protecting the environment. It is an agenda that will lead to the destruction of the middle class for the benefit of the elites who run the corporations.

Those aren't "centrist," in my view, and to say it is an exercise in Orwellian Newspeak in my opinion. Yet they have all been cast as "centrist."

If that's the definition of "centrism," we're in deep shit.

staying the course in Iraq

The same mistakes are being made as in Viet Nam, also a war based on a lie. Democrats should no better

If we continue to follow the DLC or mccain/clinton path, after 6 to 7 years many more Americans and Iraqiis will be dead

They said if we left Viet Nam there would be a mass slaughter just as they are saying about Iraq. Enough is enough

We should take the Democratic party as far left as possible. I'm tired of centrist compromise.

what we need is a middle left approach

doesn't mean corporatist.

And that's all there is to it.

Like Thom Hartmann, I'm a member of the "Radical Center" and I'm sick of people selling off my country and its future for a bit of silver or a bit of influence NOW.

A DLCer is an honest politician. Once bought, s/he STAYS bought.

Ha ha.

specifically I mean anti-Arab, anti-Muslim racism and warmongering.

Just as the country is getting sick of war

Just as the post 9/11 jingoism is waring off

Just as the country wants peace.

We have some in the Democratic Party who think that whipping the country into an anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racist, warmongering frenzy is the way to win and more disturbingly; the policy to follow.

Does anyone in their right mind believe this will reduce the threat of terrorism? Is there anyone in their right mind who doesn't know that this will dramatically increase the danger of terrorism?

Is there anyone operating in a normal moral universe who does not see something wrong with this?

I don't care if its the DLC or anybody else. I wouldn't approve and I would be outraged if the PDA was doing it.

The "loony left" told this country exactly what would happen if we went to war.
The "loony left" told this country exactly what would happen if we semi-ignored bin Laden.
The "loony left" told this country exactly what would happen if we trusted Bush.

The centrists, right wing and "responsible liberals" turned out to be the loonies, not us.

And the majority of the nation now believes what the "loonie left" said three years ago.

So, at the very least, you'll have to call us the "loony mainstream".

Therein lies the problem - DLC and the GOP are attempting to redefine the ideological center or "mainstream" of political debate as "loony liberals".

They've been attempting to do so for years, but with less and less success. Unfortunately, its nearly impossible to have a reasoned debate with people whose only goal is to defeat or silence you.

I was thinking of the Bush family and its considerable money and state party support in New Hampshire's GOP primary in 2000. John McCain whupped Junior like a rented mule in that one, with far fewer bucks and connections.

McCain -- this was in 2000 now, don't forget -- was a refreshing change of pace from Junior's pathetic, tongue-twisted appeal for support.

The DLC is potent when all the variables are in place and it can assert its candidates without opposition. When it is opposed, there are often sparks. The Ohio Senate race this year is a recent example of such conflicts, but it's not the only one. John Glenn, years back, was thought to be a shoe in for a Senate nomination and lost, despite state party backing, to Howard Metzenbaum.

Evan Bayh is loyally DLC, or has been up to now. There could be some shifts in his emphases in view of a likely national campaign -- we'll have to see. Although I'm not hogwild about Bayh's general record, he has impressed me with his very sturdy questioning of Donald Rumsfeld following the revelations of Abu Ghraib. Donald Rumsfeld doesn't like being questioned. By anybody.

George McGovern was from South Dakota in 1972 and in the early going, wasn't given much chance. Even after he won the nomination state party people were cool to him because he represented meaningful reform. It made them uneasy. A lot of McGovern's most loyal supporters were from "Centrists" who might have preferred Hubert Humphrey, for example, but who decided after all to throw their hearts to George McGovern, especially in light of these odd, scattered reports of some kind of burglary at Democratic HQ at the Watergate... a few of those operatives got it right away that the shit was about to hit the fan, and they became some of McGovern's fiercest warriors. Nixon won by a landslide, but all THAT political capital did him little good when half his Cabinet and staff were being indicted and the House Impeachment Committee had formed.

Barbara Boxer, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and Jack Reed all enjoy senate seats in very blue states. Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, and Evan Bayh do not. If we insist that these "centrists" vote as Boxer, Kerry, and Kennedy vote, their patoots are on the next caboose out of town. Voters in their state will remove them. In Indiana, for example, Evan Bayh's father Birch Bayh, took on many principled issues, and did not budge from them. A classic liberal. Indiana voters turned him out of office in 1980 in favor of a young Congressman named Dan Quayle. As a centrist senator, and governor, and secretary of state, Evan Bayh has learned how to navigate to stay in power. His re-election totals last time were impressive. I'm frustrated with some of the votes, but those votes I'd rather him change are the very ones that keep him in that seat instead of someone even WORSE than Dan Quayle, and you Indiana voters know full well that Pence and Burton and Sodrel and Buyer and Chocola are ALL as bad or worse than Dan Quayle. If it is unpleasant and uncomfortable to be disturbed by some of Bayh's votes, it's far preferable to being horrified by any GOP replacement.

We need to volunteer as much time as we can spare to build the party. The stronger the party is in our individual districts and states, the easier it is for our Congressional representatives to take principled stands. In a weak state, in a red state, the penalty is often removal from office.

It's easy for me to say I like Ned Lamont and want him to win. It's a lot harder for me to say I don't like Evan Bayh and won't vote for him. Lamont might very WELL win in Connecticut. Evan Bayh has no chance in Indiana if his voting record is anywhere close to Barbara Boxer's or Kerry's or Kennedy's in Massachusetts.

I'd call for building the party scaffold stronger -- way stronger -- where each of us lives so that Democrats can be more aligned with the party's liberal tenets. Instead of dumping blame on individual, elected officials, we might consider that we could help our own cause by strengthening the support system that would keep them in office.

bill, anti-universal health care? Do they want more wars? I would tend to doubt it.

On some social issues I could imagine that they would be more liberal than California or Massachusetts.

But on those issues the DLC wing and the liberal wing are in 90% agreement.

conservative voters of both parties too often vote against the best interests of their families, their children, their sick elderly, and so forth. My thought is that these appeals come in places where the party's infrastructure is weak, and in some cases, so thin as to be non-existant.

If Democratic officials of red districts knew that an infrastructure backed their votes on "controversial" issues, they would be much more inclined to cast the vote aligned with the party's platform, including on the issues you mention.

Without that infrastructure, without the sturdy scaffolding, they are left to the majority in those red states' districts, and those voters will turn them out of office. It happens again and again.

Family people are sometimes one personality at family gatherings and quite another at the office party. The analogy is weak, but it's a bit the same for politicians. In San Francisco, a left-of-center mayor, Gavin Newsome, won a primary race against way-left-almost-socialist challenger Matt Gonzales. It was a pretty close race, too.

Neither of those candidates, running on the issues and positions they ran on in San Francisco, would even register as a blip in rural Georgia. The candidates who are palatable in rural Georgia can't vote further left until the party's infrastructure is beneath them enough so they know they can minimize the punishment quotient for a "controversial" vote.

For example where I grew up in Western Pennsylvania any candidate who was seen as "Pro-gun control" would be unelectable no matter what their positions were on other issues.

I find it harder to understand this on the economic or war and peace issues.

some people voted for Republicans, especially a George Bush-type of Republican. And for the last several election cycles, the "Christian evangelical Bush Republicans." These people are evidently not plugged in.

A non-Christian myself, it was bewildering to hear those far-right fundies extoll the virtues of Bush's "shock and awe" initiative in Iraq. Even a 2nd grader could see that there was no significant formal military resistance to U.S. assault & occupation. Those bumperstickers ("Who Would Jesus Bomb?") were damned effective.

And at last, some of Bush's base, including some of these evangelicals, is beginning to see what a lying and shallow man he is, and how much cruelty and greed fuel his administration.

Some of the data being reported this last couple of weeks are suggesting that the GOP stuck with Junior a bit too long. The disapproval rating of the Republican-led Congress is running in the high danger zone. That's good for Democrats politically, but very sad, too, because it means that all of us as Americans have a lot of work to do.

They are elevated to levels of importance in discussion here at DU that is not commensurate with their actual influence in the Democratic Party. They are simply a more organized faction that has a voice and fund-raising capabilities. Anyone can organize and should if they feel their voice isn't being heard. Calling for the purging of another factions is just Jets versus Sharks crap that is pointless in the bigger scheme of things.

As a former member of DLC (back in the mid 90's) its become apparent the DLC is no longer a place for great ideas, for developing creative public policy. They haven't had a truly original or creative proposal in years, its just warmed over GOP policy.

In some ways, the Dem party only has themselves to blame - the lack of financial support for any grassroots organizations within the party led the DLC to take corporate money to stay afloat and their policy agenda naturally followed the money.

(no pun intended, I'm assuming...), and I want very much to not only respect the wishes expressed in the OP that this be kept respectful. But, then I saw this post and read the story, and I am back to ballistic again...



I will return if and when I feel I can compose myself enough to respond to the arrogance and the audacity inherent in a candidate who believes she can "unite" a Party around the DLC, whose tenets and core beliefs people like me find positively repulsive, and an absolute no-go.

I will just say this, and go meditate or something: I will never be a member of a Party that is Pro-War, Pro-Corporation, and anti-everything I believe in just because it's the "lesser of two evils". I WILL NOT. And, I don't believe I am alone. If Sen. Clinton tries this power-grab (I believe that's all it is), she will split this Party down the middle instead of "uniting" it around the middle.

I'll be back later. Maybe. I need a primal scream at the moment.

TC

I mean, come on! Rupert Murdoch is helping with Hillary's campaign? Kristol wants Hillary for President? I don't want the neocons in my party! I don't want people who torture, spy on people, lie about war & steal elections. I'm sick of the neocons. I want them all in jail, & if Hillary wants to be a neocon, then forget her!

Tammy

DNC doesn't and has a true leader in Dean. Screw all DLC rethug lite. I want a knew direction and our troops out of Iraq. DLC is bought and paid for. Whats to debate?

If you were really serious about wanting a "healthy debate" you should have taken a bit more care when you wrote your OP. Because this just looks like flame bait to me.